Be Different: Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian with Practical Advice for Aspergians, Misfits, Families & Teachers

John Robison argues that Asperger's is about difference, not disability. In this book he offers stories from his own life and from the lives of other Aspergians to give the reader a window into the Aspergian mind. Equally important, he offers practical advice - to Aspergians, their parents, and educators - on how Asperians can improve the weak communication and social skills that keep them from taking full advantage of, or even recognizing, their often remarkable gifts.

Running with Scissors: A Memoir

Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of being Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain.

John Elder Robison's best-selling memoir, Look Me in the Eye, is one of the most beloved accounts of life with autism. In Switched On, Robison shares the second part of his journey, pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery as he undergoes an experimental brain therapy known as TMS, or transcranial magnetic stimulation. TMS drastically changes Robison's life.

The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man's Quest to Be a Better Husband

At some point in nearly every marriage, a wife finds herself asking, "What is wrong with my husband?!" In David Finch's case, this turns out to be an apt question. Five years after he married Kristen, the love of his life, they learn that he has Asperger syndrome. The diagnosis explains David's ever-growing list of quirks and compulsions, his lifelong propensity to quack and otherwise melt down in social exchanges, and his clinical-strength inflexibility. But it doesn't make him any easier to live with.

Raising Cubby: A Father and Son's Adventures with Asperger's, Trains, Tractors, and High Explosives

Misfit, truant, delinquent. John Robison was never a model child, and he wasn’t a model dad either. Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at the age of 40, he approached fatherhood as a series of logic puzzles and practical jokes. When his son, Cubby, asked, “Where did I come from?” John said he’d bought him at the Kid Store and that the salesman had cheated him by promising Cubby would “do all chores”. He read electrical engineering manuals to Cubby at bedtime.

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

What is autism: a lifelong disability or a naturally occurring form of cognitive difference akin to certain forms of genius? In truth, it is both of these things and more - and the future of our society depends on our understanding it. Wired reporter Steve Silberman unearths the secret history of autism, long suppressed by the same clinicians who became famous for discovering it, and finds surprising answers to the crucial question of why the number of diagnoses has soared in recent years.

Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding Social Mysteries Through the Unique Perspectives of Autism

Born with autism, both Temple Grandin and Sean Barron now live famously successful social lives. However, their paths were quite different. Temple's logical mind controlled her social behavior. She interacted with many adults and other children, experiencing varied social situations. Logic informed her decision to obey social rules and avoid unpleasant consequences. Sean's emotions controlled his social behavior.

Jennifer Griner says:"Definitely an eye opener! A must read by everyone!"

The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

Written by Naoki Higashida, a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, The Reason I Jumpis a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic loved one at last have a way to break through to the curious, subtle, and complex life within.

The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum

Temple Grandin teaches listeners the science of the autistic brain, and with it the history and sociology of autism. By being autistic--by being able to look from the inside out and from the outside in--the author's insights are not just unique, they're groundbreaking. According to Temple, our understanding of autism has been perhaps fundamentally wrong for the past 70 years.

Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism

Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is a gifted animal scientist who has designed one third of all the livestock-handling facilities in the United States. She also lectures widely on autism - because Temple Grandin is autistic, a woman who thinks, feels, and experiences the world in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us.

Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew

Every parent, teacher, social worker, therapist, and physician should have this succinct and informative audiobook in their back pocket. Framed with both humor and compassion, the book defines the top 10 characteristics that illuminate the minds and hearts of children with autism. Ellen's personal experiences as a parent, an autism columnist, and a contributor to numerous parenting magazines coalesce to create a guide for all who come in contact with a child on the autism spectrum.

Monique says:"Encouraging and optimistic take on children living with autism."

Different...Not Less: Inspiring Stories of Achievement and Successful Employment from Adults with Autism, Asperger's, and ADHD

This book is a compilation of success stories from adults with autism and Asperger's syndrome. Each shares what helped them during their childhood and young lives that made them the independent adults they are today. One of the most important missions Temple Grandin has is making sure people with autism and Asperger's make something of their lives.

Asperger's on the Job: Must-Have Advice for People with Asperger's or High Functioning Autism and their Employers, Educators, and Advocates

Up to 85% of the Asperger's population are without full-time employment, though many have above-average intelligence. Rudy Simone, an adult with Asperger's Syndrome and an accomplished author, consultant, and musician, created this insightful resource to help employers, educators, and therapists accommodate this growing population, and to help people with Asperger's find and keep gainful employment.

The Loving Push: How Parents and Professionals Can Help Spectrum Kids Become Successful Adults

Parents, teachers, therapists, and anyone who cares about a child or teen on the autism spectrum needs this essential roadmap to prepare our youth for being successful adults in today's world. Best-selling author, autism advocate, and animal science professor Dr. Temple Grandin joins psychologist and autism specialist Dr. Debra Moore in spelling out the steps you can take to restore your child's hope and motivation, and what you must avoid.

Born on a Blue Day: A Memoir

One of the world's 50 living autistic savants is the first and only to tell his compelling and inspiring life story and explain how his incredible mind works. Worldwide, there are fewer than 50 living savants, those autistic individuals who can perform miraculous mental calculations or artistic feats. (Think Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man.) None of them has been able to discuss his or her thought processes, much less write a book. Until now.

The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's (Revised and Expanded Edition)

In this innovative audiobook, Dr. Temple Grandin gets down to the REAL issues of autism, the ones parents, teachers, and individuals on the spectrum face every day. Temple offers helpful do's and don'ts, practical strategies, and try-it-now tips, all based on her "insider" perspective and a great deal of research. This revised and expanded edition contains revisions based on the most current autism research, as well as 14 additional articles.

Bright Not Broken: Gifted Kids, ADHD, and Autism

The future of our society depends on our gifted children - the population in which we’ll find our next Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, or Virginia Woolf. Yet the gifts and talents of some of our most brilliant kids may never be recognized because these children fall into a group known as twice exceptional, or "2e". Twice exceptional kids are both gifted and diagnosed with a disability - often ADHD or an Autism Spectrum Disorder - leading teachers and parents to overlook the child’s talents and focus solely on his weaknesses. Too often, these children get lost in a cycle of chasing diagnostic labels and are never given the tools to fully realize their potential.

How to Teach Life Skills to Kids with Autism or Asperger's

In the real world, people on the autism spectrum need the same kinds of day-to-day skills everyone else needs to be functional! It's true. No matter how high-functioning children with autism or Asperger's may be or may become, they function better as adults if they've had the chance to learn basic skills, from being on time to good personal hygiene. But many reach adulthood without those skills. Enter Jennifer McIlwee Myers, aspie at large.

1001 Great Ideas for Teaching and Raising Children with Autism or Asperger's

1001 Great Ideas has been a treasured resource in the autism community since 2004. In this expanded second edition, Ellen Notbohm (best-selling author of the revolutionary book Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew) and Veronica Zysk (award-winning author and former editor of Autism Asperger's Digest magazine) present parents and educators with over 1800 ideas try-it-now tips, eye-opening advice, and grassroots strategies.

The Autism Revolution: Whole-Body Strategies for Making Life All It Can Be

After years of treating patients and analyzing scientific data, prominent Harvard researcher and clinician Dr. Martha Herbert offers a revolutionary new view of autism and a transformative strategy for dealing with it. In The Autism Revolution, she teaches you how to approach autism as a collection of problems that can be overcome - and talents that can be developed. Each success you achieve gives your child more room to become healthy and to thrive.

The author of the best-selling phenomenon The Reason I Jump returns with a unique memoir about life as a young adult with severe autism. With an introduction by David Mitchell, who translated this book with his wife, KA Yoshida, this extraordinary new work explores education, identity, family, society, and personal growth, opening a window into the mind of its nonverbal author and providing remarkable insights into autism in general.

How Can I Talk If My Lips Don't Move?: Inside My Autistic Mind

When he was three years old, Tito was diagnosed as severely autistic, but his remarkable mother, Soma, determined that he would overcome the "problem" by teaching him to read and write. The result was that between the ages of eight and eleven he wrote stories and poems of exquisite beauty, which Dr. Oliver Sacks called "amazing and shocking". Their eloquence gave lie to all our assumptions about autism....

Lust & Wonder: A Memoir

In chronicling the development and demise of the different relationships he's had while living in New York, Augusten Burroughs examines what it means to be in love, what it means to be in lust, and what it means to be figuring it all out. With Augusten's unique and singular observations and his own unabashed way of detailing both the horrific and the humorous, Lust & Wonder is an intimate and honest memoir that his legions of fans have been waiting for.

Publisher's Summary

Ever since he was small, John Robison had longed to connect with other people. But by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits, including an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five-foot holes, had earned him the label "social deviant". No guidance came from his mother or his father. It was no wonder he gravitated to machines, which could, at least, be counted on.

After fleeing his parents and dropping out of high school, his savant-like ability to visualize electronic circuits landed him a gig with KISS. Later, he drifted into a "real" job, as an engineer for a major toy company. But the higher Robison rose in the company, the more he had to pretend to be "normal" and do what he simply couldn't: communicate. It was not until he was 40 that an insightful therapist told him he had the form of autism called Asperger's syndrome. That understanding transformed the way Robison saw himself - and the world.

A born storyteller, Robison takes you inside the head of a boy teachers and other adults regarded as "defective". He also provides a fascinating reverse angle on the younger brother he left at the mercy of their nutty parents: the boy who would later change his name to Augusten Burroughs.

Ultimately, this is the story of Robison's journey from his world into ours, and his new life as a husband, father, and successful small business owner. It's a strange, sly, indelible account, sometimes alien, yet always deeply human.

What a great book! I began reading this book for educational purposes and wasn't expecting to be entertained. The humor is exceptional, but also gives insight on real life childhood differences. I listen to audio books in the car & must have looked pretty funny laughing so hard while driving alone! It's one of the best books I've read in a very long time!

The author does not have any training in science, psychology, or logic; which is not a crime in itself, but he constantly uses "I'm autistic, so therefore I cannot help but think logically!" to explain away some very illogical lines of thought and fabricated narratives. As an autistic scientist myself, this drove me up the wall.

He comes up with a lot of mighty tempting narratives that sound pretty plausible, and states them as facts and logic (think: bad evolutionary psychology papers). Nobody is born with a solid grasp on logic or science, not even autistic people (although they might have a leg-up on the competition). This is why there is extensive coursework and schooling for these subjects.

I would have much preferred that the author frame this story as an interesting autobiography of somebody with a very weird and interesting life who happened to be autistic. Did his autism influence and affect his life and perception? Certainly it did, and that makes his accounts very interesting, but he should have left out his countless "autism teaching moments" where he pauses the story to say "now see, this is all because of my autism, clearly I had no choice and clearly I was the only logical one there."

I would have removed these parts, partly because they got repetitive and obnoxious, and mostly because there is no way to parse out how much of his reactions are due to his autism and how much are due to his traumatic and tumultuous childhood (or even some combination of both).

I love autism self-advocacy and I think it is very important, but he loves to make "scientific" and "psychiatric" evaluations of his actions post-hoc, when he doesn't have any training in these fields (and this is painfully obvious). Just as a woman is uniquely qualified to speak about her experiences and feelings as a woman, she cannot describe her own biology accurately unless she had received sufficient education in biology or performed sufficient biological studies and learned that way.

For these reasons, if you are interested in autism self-advocacy or you want to learn more about autism, I would suggest sticking to Rudy Simone or Temple Grandin instead. They are more scientifically-minded than John Elder Robison and are more versed in the nuances of autism and individual experiences. If you just want to read a fun autobiography from a man who had an incredibly unusual (even for an Aspergian) life and you don't necessarily need to learn anything about autism, then Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's will fit the bill. Because don't get me wrong, it was still a fun and exciting narrative.

With my recent diagnosis, I've been reading all I can on the subject of Asperger's, mainly personal accounts, of which this was one. Though I do wish I had paid better attention and read this book about 5 years ago, I am very glad to have read it now.

I really like when things connect. This book connected me to a new way of thinking about my life, in addition to connecting to my previous obsession with every work of Augusten Burroughs.

Some explanations might seem dry to Nypicals, but pay attention, and you'll stand to learn a lot about that loved one in your life who has always puzzled you. If you are Aspergian, they will make perfect sense and find yourself gesturing wildly and bemoaning agreement while listening to many parts of this book.

If you are looking for something more self-help than memoir, check out Robison's latest, "Be Different." Also, keep a look out this spring for his upcoming book about raising his son "Cubby" after his own diagnosis. Or, David Finch's "Journal of Best Practices," which I found also very comforting, on so many levels.

I listened to this book before I heard Mr. Robison speak at a conference. He speaks as he writes--very authentic, sometimes with humor, and committed to explaining the disorder from his own viewpoint. I enjoyed the stories he recounted in the book, even though some of them were filled with troubling experiences. He does not feel sorry for himself, but we can use some of his experiences to understand people who may view the world in a similar way.

Having heard about Asperger's over the years and having some idea of what it meant this book made it all more real for me. The insight that the author gives as to why people with Asperger's are viewed as difficult and arrogant is refreshing.
Yes, some of the book is repetitive but the candid reflection of how 'normal' behaviour is incomprehensible and confusing to someone with Asperger's is great. When I got to the end of the first part and realised that I didn't have the 2nd part on my iPod and would have to wait overnight to continue listening I was gutted.
The only truely appalling thing about this book was the English accent that the narrator used for some of the characters, but thankfully they didn't have too many lines

Finished this book quickly. It was really interesting and put together well. I never lost interest and was often eager to get back and continue with the reading. It's really nice to have a little peak into what aspergers is, especially since my now 3 year old son has been diagnosed to be on the spectrum and high functioning. If I were to find something to improve upon the book, it would have to be the addition of the author's age as of when the events took place. It was a little bit difficult for me to follow at first because I'm just to chronological order which this book does not do. But I accepted it and just listened to the stories. Very, very good book. I will be reading more of the author's books.

If you could sum up Look Me in the Eye in three words, what would they be?

Thank you for helping me understand the world of Asperger's as I embark on this journey with my 3 year old. Your insight will help change the trajectory of his life. I will be more conscientious of everything I do and say in his life and will advocate for him in all areas. The book helped me see the gift of Asperger's. Thank you for sharing your story with the world and this mama bear.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Look Me in the Eye?

When John Elder returns to his home town, a town filled with painful memories, he sees it as a chance to right a wrong. I believe this was a turning point in his life. This has been encouraging to me as I have been forced to start over in my hometown as a single, 42 year old mother of an infant. It gives me, a typical adult, hope for better days for myself and my son.

Have you listened to any of Mark Deakins’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When John Elder showed compassion and empathy for his dying father. That must have been a tremendous, personal, breakthrough. What courage, what persistence, what an example for humanity.

Any additional comments?

John Elder, I cry for your heartbreak and I celebrate your victories! May you always feel loved and important!